If we're still so dependent on fossil fuels as to need that pipeline in 20 years, the world is going to be one big disaster area due to global climate change.
Correct. That is part of the plan, but not the overall.
But, it isn't about dependence on degenerate fuel sources. There has been free energy since Tesla, and likely since Phoenicia, Egypt, and Sumer.
You don't make money on free energy technology.
It is better to exhaust an archaic energy source whilst making the maximum amount of money, than it is to influence a
self-sufficient, energy sufficient paradigm that would categorically eliminate most all social problems. Then, when the archaic energy source becomes obsolete, you can introduce the less archaic (but severely lacking) technology and make the maximum profit from that - over several decades.
It is a game; a corporate energy ponzi with fingers in every facet.
There are many reasons why this pipeline shouldn't be built, that it is where it is and being done over the objections of the Native Americans who's land it will effect is only one of them (Albeit a very important cause in and of itself).
Well, these entities that want their pipeline don't care about any of that. If it doesn't make them money, it doesn't matter.
People, to these type of entities, are commodities to be trades for political, economic, psychological, and cultural exploitation.